All Grown Ups Were Children
by Miss Mysty
Summary: Two shot, fifth in the literary quotes series.  It's Ritsu's mother's birthday and he and Masamune head over for her party, straight into the clutches of high-society old ladies who still find Ritsu adorable.
1. Chapter 1

_All grown-ups were children first. (But few remember it).- The Little Prince_

All Grown-Ups Were Children, Part 1

It wasn't fun, Ritsu reflected, trying to find a birthday present for his mother the day after Valentine's Day. If he'd had any time at all he would've gotten something earlier, but he hadn't. So he found himself wandering aimlessly around a mall on the Saturday before her party, Masamune trailing him like a shadow.

"You didn't have to come with me, you know," Ritsu said, eying Masamune.

"I wanted to." That was all he deigned to say on the matter before he took Ritsu's hand. "Besides, I was up all night going over edits with Ichinose-sensei. I have so much caffeine in my blood that I was vibrating for an hour."

Ritsu eyed his boyfriend. The idea of Takano Masamune being hyped-up on caffeine was a hard one to imagine. Sure, he saw Masamune drinking coffee every day, but it affecting him like that was a strange thought. He was so busy considering Masamune that he only noticed An calling out to him when Masamune pulled him to a stop.

"Good morning, Kohinata-san." Masamune bowed, keeping his fingers laced in Ritsu's. "It's good to see you again."

"And you as well, Mr. Next-Door Neighbor," she said, returning the bow and completely ignoring that Masamune had properly introduced himself the last time they saw each other. Her eyes lingered on Ritsu and Masamune's joined hands as she said, "Are you buying your mother a gift for tomorrow, Ricchan?"

Ritsu rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Yes. I haven't had much inspiration, though."

An smiled. "I'm sure she'd be happy simply spending time with you."

"With all her friends there giving her extravagant gifts? I doubt it," Ritsu said, snorting.

An thought for a while, finally tearing her eyes from Ritsu and Masamune's hands. People were walking around them, a lot of girls carrying heavily discounted Valentine's chocolate. Finally, her eyes lit up. "There is something she's been enjoying lately. Would you like me to show you?"

Ritsu glanced at Masamune. It wasn't as if they had anything to lose at that point.

An led them to a candy shop, its interior so pink and fluffy it rivaled the Emerald offices. As the woman led them through, Masamune was looking impressed. "I might have to talk to the person who decorated this place."

"As if you need help." Ritsu looked slightly miffed about that, and An glanced back at them, an inquisitive look on her face. "You haven't seen our office, have you? Pink furniture, pink walls, stuffed animals and such all over the place. You'd probably like it."

An had the dignity to give them at least a small smile at that before turning to the display they had stopped at. It was near the back of the shop, but there were other people around, so it seemed to be popular. Ritsu stood at it for about half a minute, just blinking, before he turned to An and said, "What exactly are they?"

"Choco Fortune," An explained, picking up a bag and showing it to Ritsu. "They come with little slips like the fortunes in fortune cookies. Your mother has been getting them a lot lately. I don't know how much stock she puts into what they say, but she seems to enjoy looking at them."

Ritsu didn't even realize until he reached out to take the bag for himself that Masamune had let go of his hand. He turned around and was surprised to see his boyfriend wasn't still there. A quick observation of the store revealed that he had wandered off to a display of lollipops about as big as his head.

"Masamune, I got something for Mother, we can go now," Ritsu said, joining him at the display.

At that point, though, Masamune had taken one of the lollipops from the stand. It was heart-shaped and pink, with glitter sugar covering it and the Kanji symbol for 'love' stamped onto its center. "I want it."

"Then you can get it yourself."

"Why can't you get it for me?"

"I know for a fact you earn more than me. You can afford one stupid lollipop." Then he averted his eyes. "Besides, I already got you chocolates yesterday."

Masamune finally seemed to agree to that reasoning, and he followed Ritsu to the cash register, an amused-looking An in tow.

"Where are you going after this, An-chan?" Ritsu asked after he had paid. Masamune had put his lollipop down on the counter and Ritsu had scowled but forked over the couple hundred yen more for it along with payment for the bag of Choco Fortune.

An ducked her head and looked down at her clasped hands. "Actually, a friend of mine from America is coming to visit, and I agreed to meet him for breakfast." She signaled over to the food court, which the candy shop was conveniently located at the edge of. Smells of fried breakfast foods and tons and tons of coffee being brewed wafted over to them.

"I need coffee," Masamune murmured, seeing the stand in the middle of the thoroughfare.

"You told me you have so much caffeine in your system that you were vibrating earlier," Ritsu said.

"My caffeine to blood ratio has significantly declined." And with that, he gave the giant lollipop to Ritsu and went to do something about it.

Ritsu sighed and shook his head, turning to An. "I can stay with you until your friend shows up, if you want?"

"Thank you, Ricchan, but I think he's already here." An's eyes turned to a group of tables where a young man with blond hair was waving frantically as soon as he saw her. Instead of waiting for her to go over to him, though, he jogged up. An bowed and said, "Hello, David. It's good to see you again."

"You too, An!" He spoke in Japanese but there was something slightly off about it that made Ritsu wince. "Thanks so much for inviting me. Who's this?" His eyes moved to Ritsu, who was trying to keep up with him. His word choice and grammar were impeccable, but his words ran together like he'd had too much coffee and forgot which syllables went where.

"Onodera Ritsu." He didn't dare take his eyes off the man before him, at that point unable to determine what he was capable of in his current state.

"Ooh, I know you! An's fiancée."

"Um, not anymore," An said. "We agreed to break off the arrangement a while back."

"Shame." David sighed like this somehow affected him. "An's a great cook. You'd be eating well the rest of your life."

"Well, my job doesn't leave me many days to sit down and enjoy a home-cooked meal." Ritsu was relieved that David's speech patterns were slowing down and becoming clearer.

"What do you do?"

"I'm an editor Marukawa Shoten's shojo manga department." Before he could add more, Masamune had rejoined them, the coffee cup in his hands so big if rivaled the lollipop that he took back from Ritsu. "Ah, this is the first editor-in-chief, Takano Masamune." Masamune was, of course, pointedly ignoring them in favor of chugging his coffee in record time.

"Dude." That was English, and Ritsu and An just stared at David like he had grown a second head. "You're a manga editor? That's awesome!" Then he seemed to think of something. "But why shojo? You're both guys." A pause. "Aren't you?"

Ritsu shrugged. "It's not that much different from any other genre. It has its own conventions and knowing those helps you make successful titles."

"And probably gets Mr. Editor-in-Chief here plenty of dates, huh?" David grinned as he nudged Masamune, who had finished his coffee binge by then.

Masamune glanced over to Ritsu before saying, "Not so much. Ritsu is the jealous type." He flung his empty coffee cup in a nearby trash bin before taking Ritsu's hand again.

This information did not seem to deter David finding manga editors cool, however, and An eventually had to intervene. "It was nice seeing you two again, but I'm sure you're quite busy. We'll see you at your mother's party tomorrow, Ricchan." She pushed David away before he could turn into even more of a fanboy.

Ritsu took that as the signal to leave, and he pulled Masamune along. The older man was gazing down at the giant lollipop, seeming to consider it. "What?" Ritsu asked. "You're the one who wanted that thing." Then he found it right in his face.

"Want the first lick?" Masamune smiled in a not-quite devious way, not even minding when Ritsu growled and pushed his arm away.


	2. Chapter 2

All Grown-Ups Were Children, Part 2

Sunday morning found Ritsu and Masamune returning to the Onodera estate. It was obvious that they weren't the first ones to arrive for his mother's party, however, because when Masamune went to park, he actually had to look for space to do it instead of having free reign. He was grumbling about it the entire time, but Ritsu just averted his eyes. He knew that having to work to get a parking spot wasn't the worst thing that would happen that day.

"Ricchan!" But that was. As soon as they entered the large house, Ritsu was pulled out of the genkan by some of his mother's friends. They were mostly women his mother's age, wives of men with high profile jobs and with nothing better to do than gossip and dote over their friends' adorable children all day. At twenty-six, Ritsu was still their favorite subject.

"Good morning," Ritsu said, but he wasn't able to bow because one of the ladies had him in a bone-crushing hug. The woman was much taller than Ritsu, and he found himself face-first in her chest. He made a sound he hoped meant 'I'm uncomfortable with this amount of contact,' but it didn't work.

Fortunately, Masamune found it appropriate to save the situation. "Ritsu, aren't you going to introduce me?" Ritsu was immediately released and they all stared at Masamune like he'd just told them he was an alien from the Alpha Centauri galaxy.

"Yes!" Ritsu blushed a little. He held out his hand in Masamune's direction. "This is Takano Masamune."

The other ladies looked confused, and the one who had hugged Ritsu turned down the hall and yelled, "Michiko!"

"Yes?"

"You failed to mention something important about Takano-san."

"I did?" Ritsu's mother appeared down the hall. Unlike at New Years, she was dressed in a traditional kimono, with her hair held back from her face. She bowed when she noticed her son and Masamune.

"Well you talked quite a lot," one of the other women said. "What you failed to mention was that Takano-san isn't a woman."

There was an awkward silence in which Ritsu took his opportunity of freedom to go back into the genkan and take his shoes off. Before more could be said on the matter of Masamune's gender, however, there came a barking from down the hall. At first Ritsu thought it was Tsuyu, coming to pounce him like she did plenty of times the last time he was there. However, it was too high-pitched to be the giant English Mastiff. Instead, a considerably smaller Dachshund came bounding down the hall, its nails making scratching noises on the floor as it tried to keep up with itself.

"Sorata would tear that thing apart," Masamune said in amusement as the dog ran up to Ritsu's mother and started jumping up, wagging its tail and seemingly begging to be picked up.

"…Mother, why do you have that?" Ritsu asked. When the Dachshund ran down the hall, all of the friends had dispersed like it was a hurricane and not a seven-pound ball of energy with back problems.

Ritsu's mother picked up the dog and hugged it to her. It was still wagging its tail, and it reached up and licked her face like she was the most awesome thing ever. "I just couldn't resist. While we were looking for a male to breed Tsuyu with, I found out one of our friends had Dachshunds, and he was the last one."

"My mother is becoming a dog lady," Ritsu said, watching his mother go back down the hall with her new dog still laying excitedly in her arms.

"Better than a cat lady."

"Yeah, I already have you for that." Ritsu gave Masamune a significant look before going down the hall for himself.

xxx

Ritsu's mother's birthday was not like a regular birthday party. There was no real organization that stipulated when to eat cake, for instance, and instead there were buffets set up around parts of the first floor that guests could eat from while talking to each other about undoubtedly fancy things. It was not, Ritsu had to admit to himself, his idea of a good time. But it was his mother's birthday, and if it made her happy for him to be there, then he'd be there.

Even if it meant David had come with An and was currently asking them all about the manga industry. His words were starting to run together again, he was so excited.

"Well, I've only been in the industry for a year and a half," Ritsu said, because for some reason David was mainly talking to him. "I didn't even read manga before I was assigned to Emerald."

David looked absolutely baffled at this. "You can't tell me you never even looked at them!"

"Well, when Masamune and I were in high school he did mention shojo manga a few times but…" Ritsu looked over to Masamune out of the corner of his eye. The older man was talking to An and seemingly not even paying attention to David and Ritsu. Ritsu bowed his head and said, "We weren't together long enough back then for him to share a lot about himself with me."

Before Ritsu knew it, Masamune had taken a hold of his arm and was pulling him along. David looked rather confused that his conversation partner was suddenly being taken from him, and An just smiled like she knew exactly what was happening as Masamune dragged Ritsu upstairs.

Masamune sat down on Ritsu's bed, which, oddly, still had sheets on it. It wasn't like they could stay over since they had work the next day. Ritsu folded his arms but refused to sit on the bed.

"Is there any particular reason you pulled me up here?" Ritsu asked, eying the closed door like it was full of volatile chemicals that might explode at any given moment. "Because my mother's going to notice I'm gone and probably come up here if you were planning something."

Masamune smirked and reached out for Ritsu, pulling him by the wrist and down onto his lap. "I always have something planned. I just like to take my time."

"Take your time, my ass," Ritsu muttered, but then he realized that wasn't exactly the best wording to use while straddling your boyfriend. He proceeded an attempt to pull away, but Masamune wrapped his arms around Ritsu's waist and kissed him.

Then, directly in Ritsu's ear, he whispered, "You never did let me have hime-hajime here in this room of yours. I had to wait two days."

"You are _not_ implying you want to have sex with dozens of people right downstairs." He shuddered when Masamune nipped at his jaw line, but managed to also say, "And two days isn't that long of a wait." Another shudder as Masamune's hands moved further down his body.

"I've gotten used to being spoiled, I suppose." And then he laid down on the bed, pulling Ritsu on top of him and continuing their kiss.

It didn't last long, though. Barking could be heard coming down the hall, and soon scratching at the door. Masamune muttered something about ignoring it, but that was before a voice that sounded distinctly like David's asked, "What's the matter, Tsuyu? Did you want to go in this room?" And then, of course, the door opened before either of them could do anything but pull out of the kiss, treating David to an eyeful of Masamune on his back, groping Ritsu's ass while the younger man just looked like he'd rather melt into the floor than face another second of life.

Well, that was at least until Tsuyu jumped up on the bed, pushing them both off in a tangle of limbs and dog saliva. Masamune ended up on top, but Ritsu quickly pushed him away and sat up, flustered beyond belief.

"It was only funny the first time," Masamune said in all seriousness, glaring over at Tsuyu. Tsuyu, for her part, looked pleased. Then, Masamune seemed to remember that someone had let her in, and he turned and glanced at David. The man was still lurking there in the doorway, but he had a hand over his eyes like he had caught Ritsu and Masamune naked rather than fully clothed, albeit probably about to change that.

"I'm sorry!" he said, and he ran for it before Ritsu or Masamune could say a thing to him.

Masamune just shook his head and glanced over at Tsuyu. "Next time, we lock the door," he said.

"Who says there's going to be a next time?" Ritsu was scowling as he patted down his hair.

Masamune grinned and leaned forward, running his hand through Ritsu's hair and messing it up again. "Just a hunch."

xxx

The party was finally over, although a few of Ritsu's mother's friends were still around. After Ritsu and Masamune had come down from Ritsu's old room, Tsuyu happily following them and the new Dachshund whose name they never got following Tsuyu like she had suddenly become the best thing in the world, they had immediately been asked where they were. Masamune had simply glanced over at David, who ducked his head at the look and tried to continue his conversation with An.

For the next couple hours, Ritsu's mother, who was in an unusually good mood, had continually asked what was wrong. At one point, David had glanced at Ritsu and Masamune, blushed, and mumbled something unintelligible.

"It's not as if you caught them having sex or something," she joked, pulling Ritsu away from Masamune and into a hug. "He'll always be my innocent little Ricchan."

Masamune arched an eyebrow at that but decided to play along. "Really?"

"Well of course!" Ritsu's mother patted him on the head, but this whole conversation was gaining a blush from Ritsu. "He's my baby, after all."

Masamune snorted and said, "He may be your 'baby' but he's hardly innocent."

"Hah?" Ritsu's mother looked puzzled by this statement.

"Do I need to list it all?" When Ritsu's mother still looked confused, Masamune started ticking off his fingers. "My bed, his bed, my apartment floor, his apartment floor, my car, my shower, the hotel bed when we went on a business trip, and when we were in high school we had sex in the school library, just once." By the end of this, Ritsu's face had turned completely red, and his mother's eyes had gone wider than should have been physically capable. "With all due respect, ma'am, Ritsu and I are grown men, so I don't understand where you get the impression that he's still pure." And then Masamune put his arm around Ritsu's shoulders as casually as can be.

"Um, Mother, Masamune and I should probably get home, since we have work in the morning and it's close to the deadline for the magazine." Ritsu was surprisingly articulate for how red his face was. "Feel free to call me if you'd ever like to meet for dinner or something."

Once they had left through the front door, Ritsu slapped Masamune's arm away from his shoulders and said, "What the hell was that?"

"She was mistaken, so I corrected her." Masamune didn't look like he gave a single care about the alarmed look on Ritsu's face. "Not a single part of it was a lie."

"It doesn't matter that it was all true! My mother's never going to forgive me!"

"For what, having sex with the man you're in a relationship with?" Masamune rose an eyebrow. "Admittedly, every time I mentioned but the library was done at least once before we officially started dating again."

"Ritsu?"

Ritsu froze, and Masamune looked behind them in interest. There was his mother, and by the look on her face, it seemed she had heard the entire conversation, or at least the part about her only son having multiple sexual encounters with a man he wasn't even dating. Before he could do more than stutter some half-formed words, however, his mother turned around and went back into the house.

"Well," Masamune said, tossing his keys in the air as they continued on their way to get his car. "I think today went quite well, don't you?"

"Shut the hell up."


End file.
